Georgian archbishop says, investigations prove that the relics of St. Maximus the Confessor are in Georgia

With the blessing of His Holiness Catholicos-Patriarch
Ilia II of Georgia the Fifth International Theological
Conference was held in Tbilisi. This year scientists,
researchers, and Church figures from Serbia, Greece,
Russia, the UK and Australia took part in the conference
which was dedicated to the life and activity of St.
Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-c. 662; feast: August
13/26).

At the conference the results were announced of the
investigations lasting several years that were dedicated
to the authenticity of the saint’s relics uncovered
in Georgia in 2010.

Archbishop Stephan of Tsageri and Lentekhi, Metropolitan
Anania of Manglisi and Tetritskaro as well as clergy and
scholars were present at the meeting.

The excavation pit with the saint's relics, 2010.

The investigation results were read out and it was
announced that the relics which had been found in 2010 in
Tsageri indeed belonged to St. Maximus the Confessor and
are a precious treasure of the Georgian Church.

“There has always been a Church tradition in Georgia
that the relics of St. Maximus the Confessor rest in the
St. Maximus Monastery at the base of the Muri fortress
near Tsageri, under the altar of the now restored little
church,” related Archbishop Stephan in as early as
2012. “When I was a student I already knew that this
saint was buried somewhere near Tsageri. With time I
started familiarizing myself with this question, with the
sources, theological research, the archaeological
excavation results of 1914. Undoubtedly, I used the works
by Prof. Korneli Kekelidze (a prominent Georgian scholar:
1879-1962), Alexander Brilliantov (a famous Russian
Orthodox theologian: 1867-1933), Prof. Sergei Epifanovich
(a patrologist and researcher of St. Maximus the
Confessor’s life: 1886-1918) as well as several
others. The expedition of 1914 carried out archaeological
excavations not inside the church, but only around it.
According to the expedition’s results, the church
was old and there had been a monastery there, but no
evidence directly connected with St. Maximus was found.
Then the First World War began followed by the Revolution,
so the works were halted.”

It was Archbishop Stephan who supervised the works when
the relics were finally discovered: “Embarking on
the excavations inside the church we had doubts about the
necessity of that decision, especially as only Patriarch
Ilia II could affirm it. However, in any case we needed to
carry out restoration works inside the church: to renew
the floor and to install a new marble altar. This little
church had been restored without any specific plan by the
local residents on the site of the previous one, destroyed
by the Bolsheviks. We were convinced that the relics of
St. Maximus the Confessor rested there, as this tradition
was passed down from generation to generation. During the
Soviet era people venerated this site as marking the grave
of St. Maximus the Confessor.”

“We know that St. Maximus the Confessor and his
disciples were tortured for their faith: their tongues and
fingers were cut off that they might not preach any more.
The fingers of the discovered bodies had been cut off and
they had traces of mouth infections (which may have
developed only from an open wound in their lifetime). The
remains of four people were uncovered in all. One of them
had been buried at a lower level; most probably these are
the relics of St. Arsenius to whom the monastery had been
originally dedicated. Those who were buried at an upper
level, in the anthropologist’s view, are St. Maximus
the Confessor along with his disciples St. Anastasius the
Apocrisiarios and St. Anastasius the Monk,” the
hierarch recounted soon after finding the relics.

Now the investigations, in which the scientists,
archaeologists, anthropologists and pathologists were
involved, have proved that the uncovered relics indeed
belong to St. Maximus the Confessor.